Hi James! There’s actually a variety of EA-aligned charities in those areas. Some that come to mind:
Teaching at the Right Level (Education)
NOVAH No Violence At Home (women’s domestic abuse prevention)
ACTRA (reducing criminality in Central America)
Africa Jobs Fund (economic growth)
Lafiyah Nigeria (contraceptives provision, so women’s empowerment)
They all have their own theories as to why they might be unusually effective.
As for why:
The differing moral priorities about saving a life versus improving a life. You sound like you’d be more on board with the moral prioritisation of the Happier Lives Institute rather than GiveWell, so do check them and their recommendations out.
Global health really has a huge funding gap. So it’s quite easily to find something that works effectively—you take a working preventative (e.g. malaria nets, chemoprevention, vaccines, vitamin supplements) and you put cash towards incentivising it / tackle supply-side issues. There’s just a lot that can be done in this space in ways that replicate. It’s quite easy to get into. A lot of other intervention types are just a lot fiddlier.
The richer a country is, the more arguments there are that effective interventions helping citizens within it should be funded by its government. To be clear, EAs still definitely work on this stuff! But they tend to bid for government funding pots, not for effective giving money, so you hear about them less.
Ah, thank you! Could I ask, do you know how I could have come to have learned about these? Like, are there any websites compiling these charities or organizations with research relevant to the question in my post?
GiveWell has lots of research on evaluating programs. Check out their website and podcast, and their grant recipients.
Happier Lives Institute does a similar thing to GiveWell, but with a different moral prioritisation (and a substantially smaller budget).
Giving Green and Power for Democracies do similarly, and I think Peace Per Dollar might be starting up.
Giving What We Can has its “other supported charities” list.
Ambitious Impact has lists of EA-incubated charities (but again, this is a different thing from effective giving opportunities, as they’re often targeting other funding sources).
The EA Forum itself runs a donation election every December—you can look up last year’s.
Coefficient Giving’s website has problem area descriptions and grant dispersals.
Hi James! There’s actually a variety of EA-aligned charities in those areas. Some that come to mind:
Teaching at the Right Level (Education)
NOVAH No Violence At Home (women’s domestic abuse prevention)
ACTRA (reducing criminality in Central America)
Africa Jobs Fund (economic growth)
Lafiyah Nigeria (contraceptives provision, so women’s empowerment)
They all have their own theories as to why they might be unusually effective.
As for why:
The differing moral priorities about saving a life versus improving a life. You sound like you’d be more on board with the moral prioritisation of the Happier Lives Institute rather than GiveWell, so do check them and their recommendations out.
Global health really has a huge funding gap. So it’s quite easily to find something that works effectively—you take a working preventative (e.g. malaria nets, chemoprevention, vaccines, vitamin supplements) and you put cash towards incentivising it / tackle supply-side issues. There’s just a lot that can be done in this space in ways that replicate. It’s quite easy to get into. A lot of other intervention types are just a lot fiddlier.
The richer a country is, the more arguments there are that effective interventions helping citizens within it should be funded by its government. To be clear, EAs still definitely work on this stuff! But they tend to bid for government funding pots, not for effective giving money, so you hear about them less.
Ah, thank you! Could I ask, do you know how I could have come to have learned about these? Like, are there any websites compiling these charities or organizations with research relevant to the question in my post?
GiveWell has lots of research on evaluating programs. Check out their website and podcast, and their grant recipients.
Happier Lives Institute does a similar thing to GiveWell, but with a different moral prioritisation (and a substantially smaller budget).
Giving Green and Power for Democracies do similarly, and I think Peace Per Dollar might be starting up.
Giving What We Can has its “other supported charities” list.
Ambitious Impact has lists of EA-incubated charities (but again, this is a different thing from effective giving opportunities, as they’re often targeting other funding sources).
The EA Forum itself runs a donation election every December—you can look up last year’s.
Coefficient Giving’s website has problem area descriptions and grant dispersals.
Thank you so much!!!
Happier lives Institute: https://www.happierlivesinstitute.org/
EA also does democracy charity evaluation which you might want to look into https://www.powerfordemocracies.org/